Page 1 of 15 Witness Statement of Karim Dahimi Witness Statement of Karim Dahimi Name: Karim Dahimi Place of Birth: Ahvaz, Iran Date of Birth: September 23, 1971 Occupation: Teacher Interviewing Organization: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) Date of Interview: September 25, 2012 Interviewer: IHRDC Staff This statement was prepared pursuant to an interview with Karim Dahimi. It was approved by Karim Dahimi on September 25, 2013. There are 66 paragraphs in the statement. The views and opinions of the witness expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. Page 2 of 15 Witness Statement of Karim Dahimi Statement Introduction 1. My name is Karim Dahimi. I was born in October, 1971. I was a schoolteacher and a resident of the Kuh Alavi neighborhood of Ahvaz. I am married and have three children. Initial Activities 2. My [cultural] activities began in 1989. I received my high school diploma in 1989-90 and from 1991-93, I was a university student majoring in education. Our activities at the time were limited to the distribution of statements and having connections with other groups in Mohammareh, Fallahiyeh1, Shush and other cities to hold cultural gatherings such as poetry readings. We did not engage in any other activities. Nevertheless, my file [with the security services] listed these activities as "intelligence-gathering" and "actions against national security." There was only one thing [that I did] that could have been considered very dangerous from the point of view of the Islamic Republic; my actions in relation to the sugarcane project. At night, we wiped out the lines marking the [confiscated] land so that the project could not be carried out. 3. The Sugarcane Development Company project was [initiated and] implemented in 1991-92. Privately-owned plots of land were confiscated [from several people] between Mohammareh, Abadan and Ahvaz. The confiscations of these agricultural properties caused many people to migrate. Seyyed Ahmad Mousavi, a Majles representative at the time2, claimed that close to 15 villages along the banks of the Karun River were destroyed by the government.3 They gave people about 20 million Rials [roughly $1,370,000 US at the time] per hectare for land between Ahvaz and Shushtar. Today the land in Shabiyah is worth more than 30 million Rials per hectare. It is all very fertile land. 4. Government policy in this regard was malevolent. They [the people involved in the project] would approach local supporters with whom they were in contact, such as Basij or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members who had property [in the areas they wanted to confiscate], and they would buy land from three of them for a price that could have been higher. Then those individuals whose land was located in between these plots were forced to give away their property. Many [landowners] were killed [resisting the process], or ended up in jail as a result. There was even an investigation by the Majles after one person was killed in the region.4 They attacked some villages, for instance Shabiyah and Daqaqelah villages between Shushtar and Ahvaz, and threw some people into prison. Hundreds of people were forced to sell their land and migrate. 1 In this interview the witness uses local Arab names for several cities in the region that are known by alternate Persian names to many people in Iran and the international community. Mohammareh is the Arab name for the city of Khorramshahr. Fallahiyeh is also known as Shadegan. 2 Majles Shora Eslami, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s elected parliament. Ahmad Mousavi has served as a member of the Majles, Vice President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and as Iran’s ambassador to Syria until 2011. See http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/08/21/163308.html. See also http://www.ivansahar.com/iran- executive-power.htm. There are no records of the claim quoted above. 3 See http://ettelaat.net/05-04/news.asp?id=4751 (in Persian) and http://borwall.blogfa.com/post-255.aspx (in Persian). 4 See http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/05/29/109946.html (in Persian). Page 3 of 15 Witness Statement of Karim Dahimi 5. There is an organization called the Kowsar Institute5 which was in charge of a plan to divert water from the Karun River and to support the Sugarcane Development Company’s project. Many companies are involved in this project. People used to grow wheat on the land that is now used for sugarcane cultivation but now they have been forced to migrate to other cities. The employment situation of the people is very bad. They are mostly unemployed or employed in the informal sector, and others have been dragged into less dignified activities. 6. People are trying to make a living. I know people who used to own date groves but their land has been destroyed. People made a living through date farm products, but now they are deprived. They were forced to migrate to the cities of Fallahiyeh, Ahvaz, Abadan and Mohammareh. Most of those who were living on the land surrounding Shushtar, for instance, migrated to the cities of Ahvaz and Shushtar. But it is very difficult for a villager to find a job in the city. 7. Most of our activities at that time were connected with this issue. Sometimes we issued threats against those who were involved in this project. These threats were limited; we would write letters and send them to the homes of these people. Nothing more. At schools and universities in the region, we handed out statements in order to shed light on the sugarcane project or other projects that were causing people to leave the region. At that time we had very few people in the region [Khuzestan] who came from the North [of the country] and other places. But in recent years many people came from Isfahan, Azarbaijan and Azna.6 As a school teacher and assistant principal, I witnessed myself that many of the students were coming from Azna. When we asked the families why they had come to Khuzestan, they would say that they had rented out their homes in their own cities and received loans or job opportunities to entice them to move to Khuzestan. This illustrates a policy that has been pursued by the government in recent years to change the makeup of the population. 8. At the request of the executives of one of the [sugar] companies, a plan was put in place for the construction of residences for 50,000 people in the town of Shirinshahr, which is a huge project that includes several thousand hectares of land. At the present time many of its residents work in the sugarcane industry. The Sugarcane Development Company’s project is very extensive. It includes several thousand hectares of land. It employs a lot of people from Shirinshahr and Raminshahr now. These people are all from outside [Khuzestan], from cities such as Yazd. I was exiled to Yazd in 1999. On the bus going to Yazd, I noticed about 15 people who were all working for the Haft-Tapeh sugarcane project. When I asked where they were living while in Khuzestan they said the government had rented houses for them. They are giving these people employment opportunities and other facilities. When I was in Yazd, there were billboards advertising jobs at the Dez Dam [also in Khuzestan]. They even advertised giving shares to those who worked at the Dez Dam. But there are no such promotions in regions where Arabs live. Government Land Policy in Khuzestan 9. Forced migrations are also about the creation of a security corridor. This corridor extends from Ilam to Bostan. This is the border between Iran and Iraq, where [the government] has settled tribes. For instance on the two sides of Allah Akbar mountain there is a region called Om Al- Debesin, Bostan County. It extends from Khafajiyeh and Bustan to a road which leads to Shush. This is a vast region, and it includes the villages of Khazraj. They wanted to give the lands of the people of this region to the Basij. This issue led to some clashes and some even ended up in 5 This could refer to any of several similarly-named organizations. The Kowsar Financial and Credit Institute, for instance, is a subsidiary of the 6 Azna is a county (shahrestan) in Lorestan Province just north of Khuzestan. Page 4 of 15 Witness Statement of Karim Dahimi prison. 10. No attempt is made to inform the public about these programs [in Arab-majority regions]. The people who benefit from the [sugarcane] project are from outside the region. Even some officials have objected to this situation. For instance the head of the local office of the Ministry of Agriculture in Khafajiyah sided with the people over this issue. After my exile to Yazd, I was sentenced to exile within Khuzestan Province for three years. I was exiled to a region between Shush and Dezful called Shavour. I witnessed people protesting there. The officials gathered the people and said they wanted to build a canal from the Shavour River. The primary occupation of the people of this area is wheat- and rice-farming, but the creation of this canal would make wheat and rice cultivation impossible. After a while people realized that this was just like the sugarcane project, the officials wanted to take their land. There were many clashes and some were thrown into jail. Whenever police cars enter the area people start to gather and youths would throw rocks at them and close the roads.